Unerasable Characters III

"Unerasable Characters III" was created by artist Winnie Soon, and is a part of the unerasable series which "explores," writes Soon, "the politics of erasure and the temporality of voices within the context of digital authoritarianism." The work reflects and examines especially the ways digital censorship is "implemented through technological platforms and infrastructure."

In each iteration, the erased archives of text arrive endlessly on the screen in the form of "content [which] has either been obscured or blacked out"; as "censored/erased (permission denied) data, including emojis, symbols, textual characters."

The project draws its data from Weibo, "one of the biggest social media platforms in China." In Unerasable Characters III, Soon "utilizes data between 1 December 2019 and 27 February 2020, the time when the COVID-19 outbreak was started in China." -- From New River Journal